A United Kingdom-based debt collection company has reportedly sued Icelandic fishing company Samherji for US$1.11 billion (about N$18.5 billion) over claims tied to the “Fishrot” scandal.
Icelandic publication Ruv reported the lawsuit is targeting Samherji and its management over claims made by a Namibian-owned company.
The publication says the lawsuit is being brought against Samherji by Restitution Litigation Limited, which was formed for the purpose of filing the lawsuit against the company.
“A company in the United Kingdom has sued the company in British courts,” Samherji chief executive Baldvin Thorsteinnson tells the publication.
“They have then agreed, as I understand it, to buy a claim from a Namibian state-owned company and then undertake to pursue a claim against Samherji in British courts.”
The lawsuit is the latest chapter in the ongoing Fishrot scandal, which began in November 2019 when WikiLeaks published 30 000 documents obtained from the company. The documents reportedly exposed schemes the company engaged used in Namibia to gain access to fishing grounds.
WikiLeaks alleged the company bribed Namibian officials and politicians to gain access to the country’s resources, charges which eventually wound up in the Namibian High Court.
Officials in Namibia including, former Namibian fisheries minister Bernhard Esau and ex-minister of justice Sakeus Shanghala, along with several other suspects, all stood trial under allegations of defrauding Namibia of millions of dollars via the scheme.
In 2021, former Samherji chief executive Thorsteinn Baldvinsson apologised for the incident, stating the company’s affiliates in Namibia had “a lot of chaos in their operations” but that it was neither aware of nor endorsed the activities.
A report issued by Namibia in 2024 called for Samherji to pay reparations for its alleged role in the scandal and compensate Namibian fishers who lost jobs due to the misconduct. It also claimed Samherji had yet to acknowledge its role in the scandal.
More recently, in 2024, a new report claimed links between Baldvinsson and Jóhannes Stefánsson, the former director of operations in Namibia, during the events of the scandal.
The report says it uncovered thousands of text messages and exchanges between Baldvinsson and Stefánsson and claimed this proved a more direct link between the two, a sign that the main company was more involved than Samherji said.
Thorsteinsson says the company will defend itself in court and that Samherji has not received a detailed explanation of the grounds for the claim.
– seafoodsource.com
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